"Who went down fighting the good fight along with Uncle Cato." Brutus sighed. "Well, whatever else we may say of Caesar, the old boy won the war fair and square, didn't he? And saw fit to let you and me keep our heads, eh, Cicero? What about you, Gordianus? Not a military man, are you?"
"Gordianus has a son who's been serving under Caesar for quite some time," said Cicero. "You may have heard of him: Meto Gordianus."
"Numa's balls, not the fellow who wrote those memoirs for Caesar?"
"My son took Caesar's dictation, yes," I said.
Brutus snorted. "Dictation, eh? Caesar probably wasn't even in the tent while your boy was scribbling away. Give credit where it's due, old man. Everybody knows those memoirs were written by a shadow. And, by Hades, they certainly did their job! From the way those memoirs tell it, the poor Gauls didn't stand a chance. Quite a tale, all blood and thunder and beat my Roman chest. Pumped up Caesar's prestige with the common folk, eh? Made him look invincible. Scared the piss out of Cato, I can tell you. 'Wouldn't want to go up against that bloodthirsty madman,' quoth my doomed uncle. Well, bugger me! The father of great Caesar's ghost, sitting right here. This is quite the literary gathering, isn't it? Cicero's written his latest book especially for me, did you know? Been sending me chapters. A History of Famous Orators, dedicated to yours truly. Celebrating a dead art, I suppose. Who needs orators when the courts are closed and the Senate's a shadow? Nonetheless, my name shall enjoy immortality on the dedication page of Cicero's great opus."
Cicero smiled. "I have no doubt that you shall achieve immortality by your own actions, Brutus."
"Really? I don't see how. A hundred years from now, I doubt that anyone's likely to remember who was governor of Cisalpine Gaul in the year of Caesar's quadruple triumphs."
"You're still a young man, Brutus. And Caesar-" Cicero glanced at me, then looked back to Brutus. "Caesar won't live forever."
"Ah, yes, and what will come after Caesar?" said Brutus. "People are already speculating about that. What does that tell you? We've begun to think just the way people think when they live under a king. We're not worrying about the next election or who's liable to get himself exiled for corruption or how to keep a foot in a game. We're wondering, 'How long will the old fellow live, and who will be his heir?' For shame!" Brutus tossed back his wine and held out his cup for the slave to refill it.
Wine, soothing the weariness of the journey, had loosened his tongue. He turned to Rupa and smiled. "It was my ancestor, also named Brutus, who founded this little thing we call a republic. Did you know that, big fellow?" He paused, as if expecting Rupa to answer, though he had been told when introduced that Rupa was mute. "Republic-comes from two fine old words, res and publica: the people's state. You're a fellow citizen, I suppose, being Gordianus's son by adoption?"
"That's correct," I said.
"Where were you born, big fellow? Somewhere quite exotic, I'll wager."
"Rupa is Sarmatian."
"Indeed, you come from the very ends of the earth, from the mountains where the sun rises! What's that line from Ennius? You know, Cicero, his epitaph for Scipio?"
Cicero raised his voice to a ringing orator's pitch. " 'The sun that rises above the eastern-most marshes of Lake Maeotis illumines no man my equal in deeds!' " Far from being chagrined by his friend's loose tongue, he seemed to be as intoxicated as Brutus. This was not the Cicero I knew.
"That's right," said Brutus. "And you, you big Sarmatian fellow, you must have actually seen Lake Maeotis, though I'll wager you haven't a clue who Scipio was. No matter! That's the point, really. What a remarkable thing is this republic, eh? It grows and grows, spreading across the whole world, from the Pillars of Hercules to Lake Maeotis, laying down roads and building cities, establishing courts of law, securing the sea lanes, and rewarding its best and brightest with the greatest prize on earth, Roman citizenship."
"And enslaving a vast multitude in the process," I commented. Rupa had been enslaved, before he gained his freedom.
"I shall not debate the natural necessity of slavery, at least not here and now," said Brutus. "That's a book for Cicero to write; one of many, now that he's retired. The law court's loss will be the reader's gain! My point, if I may return to it, is the end of our republic, and everything it stands for. As I said, it was my ancestor who founded this thing." This was an exaggeration-the Brutus of ancient times hardly drove the Tarquins out of Rome single-handedly-but I let it go. "Over four hundred and fifty years ago! The republic has served us for many, many generations. The republic has made us masters of ourselves and masters of the world. As Brutus knew it would. How he loved the republic! No effort was too Herculean, no sacrifice too great to ensure its survival. Do you know what he did, Sarmatian, in the very first year of the republic, when he got wind of a conspiracy to bring back the king?"
Rupa shook his head.
"Brutus declared that any man involved in such a plot must die. Then a slave brought him proof that his own two sons were involved in the plot. Did he make an exception for them? Did he spirit them out of the city or destroy the evidence or pardon them? No, he did not. He had every royalist conspirator arrested. The guilty were lined up and forced to kneel, and the lictors chopped their heads off, one by one. Chop, chop, chop! Brutus watched the beheading of his own two sons, and the historians tell us he never flinched. And afterward, he rewarded the slave who had informed on them by granting the man citizenship-making him the first slave ever to become a Roman citizen. A precedent that has worked to your advantage, my Sarmatian friend!"
Brutus sat back, held out his cup for another refill, and drank it down. Talking had made him thirsty. "And that, fellow citizens, is a tale of true republican virtue. What man today could claim to be as brave, as resolute, as decisive as my forefather?"
"Perhaps his descendant," suggested Cicero, in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.
Brutus the founder had killed his own sons for the sake of the republic. Might another Brutus dare to kill his surrogate father for sake of the same res publica? And might Cicero, Rome's greatest advocate and orator, be just the man to persuade Brutus to do it?
"But what's this?" Brutus tossed his empty cup to a slave and picked up the astronomical documents Cicero had laid aside upon his arrival. He perused the notations, a bit bleary-eyed. "Symbols for Capricorn and Cancer, Virgo and Libra… those are clear enough. But what are these extraordinary nonsense words? Egyptian months? Mesore, Phamenoth, Pharmouthi, Thoth, Phaopi, Tybi, Hathyr, Mecheir, Epiphi, Choiak, Pachon, Payni. Quite a mouthful! And all these columns of numbers…" He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and laid the documents aside. "What are you up to, Cicero, helping our dictator with calculations for his new calendar? I do hope he's not intending to saddle us with Egyptian months, along with an Egyptian queen. Really, that would be the last straw! 'Shall we dine on the Ides of Tybi?' 'Meet me in the Forum two days before the Kalends of Thoth.' "
He threw back his head and laughed.
"Actually, Gordianus brought these," said Cicero. "They appear to be the pet project of a mutual friend. A friend who no longer has need of a calendar, alas."
The time seemed right to depart. I rolled up the documents and handed them to Rupa. I asked Cicero to convey my farewell to his napping bride. I wished Brutus a good stay in Rome, and I took my leave.
VIII
"Tomorrow!" said Bethesda, standing in the front doorway with her arms crossed. Her tone was adamant, her posture imperious. Hand her a flail and a crook, I thought, and put a nemes crown with a rearing cobra on her head, and she could pass for Egyptian royalty.